There follows a summary of the article with the headline “Preparation for Al-Bab in the Turkish Armed Forces” by Uğur Ergan and Ahmet Özer that appeared in Turkey's Hürriyet newspaper yesterday:

• The Turkish Armed Forces have various action plans for moving into the Syrian city of Al-Bab.• Alongside the Special Forces (Maroon Berets) directly attached to the Chief of the General Staff, warplanes and tanks, various combatant infantry units attached to the land forces will also enter Syria.• An official said that “A more comprehensive ground force is needed to move into Al-Bab. Ground elements undoubtedly form part of the plan of action. As the esteemed President has said, a purging that also takes in Al-Bab is necessary to entirely secure Turkey’s border.” The same official said that Turkey had no unilateral plan of action with regard to Daesh’s headquarters in Syria of Raqqa.• The first target, prior to reaching Al-Bab, is the town of Dabiq, which is of special importance to Daesh. However, intelligence from the area shows that Daesh has dug many trenches around Dabiq, there are mobile anti-tank weapons and hundreds of mines and IEDs have been planted around the town.

This is my translation of Kadri Gürsel’s column in today’s (22 September) secular opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper in response to the previous day’s report in Hürriyet that Turkey was preparing to dispatch its infantry to Syria.

The infantry will of necessity enter the Syrian quagmire

The Turkish Armed Forces are planning to bring in various combatant infantry units with the aim of capturing from Daesh the city of Al-Bab in Syria 30 km from the border. “An official” has said to Uğur Ergan of Hürriyet that “A more comprehensive ground force is needed to move into Al-Bab. Ground elements undoubtedly form part of the plan of action.” In the light of intelligence suggesting that the nearer town of Dabiq – from which it is said Daesh will be purged before Al-Bab - has been strongly fortified, a fierce battle is expected to ensue here. This is a three-sentence summary of the report with the headline “The Infantry is going in” in yesterday’s Hürriyet, announcing that Turkey is set to become well and truly bogged down in the Syrian quagmire, into which it has already waded in the guise of the ‘Euphrates Shield’.

Lack of military success

One’s eyes automatically search in an article of this nature for mention of the so-called infantry of the ‘Euphrates Shield’, the FSA. Where might the FSA be positioned a military equation that requires Turkish infantry to be brought into Syria? The FSA is mentioned in the article, but not in a section having to do with the entry of infantry units into Syria. The FSA’s name is mentioned at the end of the article, with reference to a number of villages that it has captured to the south of Al-Rai. The assortment of jihadi irregulars hiding behind the pseudonym of the FSA scored no noteworthy military successes against Daesh prior to the ‘Euphrates Shield’, either. It would now appear that, even with Turkish tanks and artillery behind them and the Turkish Air Force above them, they inspire no confidence in their masters. A so-called rectification of this shortcoming appears to be available: The Turkish infantry taking the place of the jihadi rag-tag infantry. We are not speaking here of special forces and 80-100 tanks and armoured vehicles. The Turkish infantry is the backbone of the Turkish land forces.

For the Turkish infantry to end up being dispatched to Syria will amount to Turkish involvement in open warfare in a manner that defies denial. This bears no resemblance to the kind of short-duration operations mounted in North Iraq in the 90’s. If you wade in, but have no defined and verified military and political goal, you cannot leave. Given that in this affair there will be no possibility of ‘settling’ the Daesh and YPG problems in the foreseeable future, either, it will be impossible for the Turkish Armed Forces to depart from Syria in the manner they entered and Turkey will find itself embroiled in a war of attrition that will cost it dear. This is the quagmire. The risk is huge.

Turkey on the slippery slope

Descent into a bottomless pit is what will come from following the rope offered by these jihadis styling themselves as the FSA, who constantly come together and break up and frequently change their names in the process, such that only a limited number of researchers and intelligence officers having field-based expertise can know of the organizations of which they are comprised and the nuances that inform the differences between them. The need to compensate for the FSA’s shortcomings with the Turkish infantry has already taken Turkey onto the slippery slope. The FSA groups participating in ‘Euphrates Shield’ are groups that have been approved and at the same time armed by the CIA. We have seen how some of these mutinied when thirty or so members of the American special forces showed up in Al-Rai.

Attempt at denial

Minister of Defense, Fikri Işık, for his part, when asked about yesterday’s report in Hürriyet, said, “We are not contemplating taking part in this operation with our own infantry. We will conduct it with the FSA.” The minister was eager to deny the report – the reason is obvious. The vast majority of the Turkish people are against the country joining the war in Syria. The minister, too, is aware of this. But, the truth on the ground contradicts the minister. The main thrust of the report bearing Uğur Ergan’s signature is true. The folks in Ankara know that they can’t trust the FSA to purge the towns of Dabiq and Al-Bab of Daesh.